dren, those creatures of light, stealing about in the unnatural dimness of noon, treading upon tiptoe, with solemn looks and questioning eyes, unconsciously distressing us by their inquiries, or startling us by the mournfulness of their unaccustomed silence. It was a relief to me when I followed my poor child to the grave, and deposited her in the earth a ready-made angel.

That I looked upon her for the last time ere her loveliness was tainted with any of the ghastly tints that precede the crumbling back of the incarnate earth to its original state, is to me a subject of permanent consolation. Her figure-the roseate transparency of her cheek-her gentle eyes-remain painted upon my memory, fresh, glowing, unpolluted. Vain were Medea's incantations, and the abstruse vigils of the alchymists, in search of the elixir vitæ that was to confer perpetual youth! Death with one blow of his scythe, has cut the Gordian-knot and unravelled the secret. It is he alone who possesses this magical power. Many years and other mournful events have passed over my head since the calamity I have been recording, and I still think of my beloved daughter as of a beautiful child, although had she lived, she might now have been the mother of children herself. That waxen bloom of youth must have passed away, time or sorrow might have set their withering brand upon her face; sickness and suffering might have bowed to the earth that graceful and elastic form. Perhaps Heaven took her back in its mercy. Blind as we are in our discontent, we sometimes bewail as a misfortune that which is our greatest blessing, just as in the darkness of our ignorance we exult in those Judas-like smiles of fortune that do but betray us to our ruin.

Notwithstanding these trials, my children have always been my greatest happiness. I have accomplished the great purpose which most men, unborn

t

to affluence, propose to themselves in life. I have followed the great chace of the world, joined the general hunt of ambition or affluence; and, having run down the prey, I find, like the other sportsmen, that the sole pleasure was in the pursuit, the object itself being utterly ignoble and worthless. Other sportsmen, however, look forward to a renewal of the chace, but the grand hunt of life can only be run once at least for a bachelor; and I cannot conceive any thing more disconsolate than the situation of such a man, who, having fulfilled his destiny, and accomplished the sole and selfish object of his existence, has nothing to do when sickness and age are encompassing him about, but to sit down in solitude and wait for death. From this blank desolation I am happily exempt: the buoyant and elastic expectations of my youth are revived in my children they are commencing the career which I have terminated; and I share the interest, without participating in the labours of their pursuits. It is owing to them that life retains its attractions; it is owing to them that death is deprived of its terrors; for I cannot think upon those whom I am to quit, without recollecting those whom I am to rejoin. On the calm golden evenings of autumn, when the season and the setting sun remind me that my course also is nearly run, I gaze upon the glowing firmament, and as they repose upon passing clouds of purple fringed with light, methinks I behold the friends who have gone before, looking down upon me with a benignant smile! Above all I distinguish the gentle eyes of my lost daughter!-she leans forward!-her profuse locks, falling from the cloud, become glorious with light!-she speaks-she beckons me! Yet a little while, my beloved, and I come!

358

THE STEAM-BOAT FROM LONDON TO

CALAIS.

If true politeness be display'd,
As Chesterfield has somewhere said,
By anti-risibility;

They who are fond of grins and jokes,
Have clearly naught to do with folks
Of saturnine gentility.

Wherefore, kind reader, if you share
Whitechapel laughs, and vulgar fare,
Beneath our steam-boat's banners,
Be not fastidious when 'tis done,
"I don't object to fun,
But can't abide low manners."

Nor cry

"BLESS my heart! Mrs. Suet here! Ah, Mrs. Hoggins, how d'ye do? Dear me! Mrs. Sweatbread, and Mrs. Cleaver too! Why, we shall have the whole of Whitechapel on board presently. I believe," said the voluble dame, looking round with a gracious and comprehensive smile, "I believe we are all butchers' ladies." "I believe we ar'n't no such a thing, Ma'am," cried a corpulent female with an oleaginous face, while trying to turn up her pugnose, which however was kept tolerably steady by a triple chin, she waddled away to another part of the vessel. "Well, I'm sure! Marry, come up! Hoity, toity" burst from the coterie with which she had disclaimed carnificial affinity; "here's airs for you!" "And her veil's only bobbinet lace," cried one;

And them fine ear-rings is only gilt, I warrant ye," said another. "Well, I do declare, there's neighbour Croak, the undertaker, with his long wobegone phiz; it gives one quite the blue devils to look at him. I say Croak, who is that stuck-up fat thing that just left us?" "Don't you know her?" inquired Croak, in a whisper; "why, that's Mrs. Dip, the great tallow chandler's lady, of Norton Falgate." Well, suppose she is, she needn't turn

66

her nose up at us: if we were to call upon her on melting-day, we might have so ething to turn up our noses at, I fancy, ha, ha, ha! Lauk! how serious you look; she isn't a friend ofurs, is she?" "I never laughs at nobody," replied the prudent Mr. Croak, "for in our line every body's liable to become a customer. Your poor brother Joe, Ma'am made a very pretty corpse. I dare say, when he was setting off on that water-party, just as we may be now, he little thought he was to be drown'd; and who knows what may happen to us this very, day?" "La, Mr. Croak, you're quite shocking; worse than a screech owl: I wonder you could join a party of pleasure."" Pleasure, indeed!" cried Croak, with a Sardonic grin, followed by a groan; "brother Tom lies dead at Calais, and one would'nt give the job to strangers, you know, being in one's own line." "Is poor Tom gone at last? you used to call him silly Tom, did'nt you?" "No," said Croak, surlily; "I always called him Tom Fool." "Well, but he has left you and George something, hasn't he?" 66 Yes," replied the undertaker, giving his lower jaw a still more lugubrious expension," he has bequeathed to one of us the payment of his debts, and to the other the care of his children."

Well, well, Mr. Croak, it ought, at all events, to make you happy, that you've now got a fair excuse for being miserable.'

"I'll take your bundle, young gentleman," said the ship's steward, addressing a youth by my side, who, I found, was Mrs. Cleaver's son; and whose sallow complexion, spindle legs, lank hair, squinting eyes, and look of impudent cunning, proclaimed him, at the same time, a genuine son of the city. "No, but you von't tho'," said the young cockney, holding his bundle behind him; "I understands trap; I'm up to snuff and a pinch above it; I'm not to be diddled in that there vay. I s'pose you thought mother and I vas going to pay a crown a

piece for our dinner; but ve don't stand no nonsense, for I've got a cold beefsteak and inguns in this here 'ankerchief, and that, vith a glass of bran. dy and vater cold, arout sugar, is vhat I call a prime spread." "Bravo, Dick!" said the delighted mother, winking at her son; " if they can take you in, I give 'em leave. As I hope to be saved, here's Mr. Smart the tanner; well, now, we shall have some fun." Ladies," cried the facetious Mr. Smart, sliding forward his foot, and making a bow of mock ceremony, "your most hydrostatic and humblecumdumble." "There you go, Mr. Smart, as droll as ever, always beginning the conversation with a repartee. Did you hear that, Mrs S.? that was a good'n; was'nt it, Mrs. H. ?" "That there tower, mother," said Dick, with a sagacious nod, vas built by Villiam the Conqueror; I vonder vhy they stuck hoyster shells all over it." "I suppose, cried Mr. Smart, "to show that he astonished the natives in more ways than one, ha, ha, ha!" Dick laughed, though he didn't know why; and pulling up his neckcloth, proceeded to give his mother a lesson in English history." It vas his dad, you know, that vas called Villiam Rufus, on account of his black 'air, and vas shot by a hill-directed harrow, which vent right thro' his 'art—” "And fell at Harrow on the hill," cried Mr. Smart, "whence it took its name, ha, ha, ha! Excuse me, Mrs. Cleaver, but your son has, somehow, pickedup a little of the cockney pronunciation." "Not more, sir, than a young man should have, who means to live all his life in the city. He went to a very good school." "And master vasn't a coxcomb," added Dick, "about his Wees and Haitches." " And, at all events," resumed Mrs. Cleaver, "he seems to have taught the boy his English history thoroughly: not that I like that sort of reading myself; we have so much blood and slaughter in our line, that it's no more treat to me than